


Growing Seasons

by mrstater



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Animals, Childbirth, F/M, Force Ghost Qui-Gon Jinn, Force Ghost(s), Gardens & Gardening, Marriage, Married Couple, Married Life, Menstruation, Original Character(s), Pregnancy, Pregnant Sex, Recreational Drug Use, Tatooine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-09
Updated: 2018-11-05
Packaged: 2019-07-28 17:34:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16246502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrstater/pseuds/mrstater
Summary: Now, they'd mark time in growing seasons.A garden, an eopie calf...What else can a year produce on a desert homestead?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Born of Light](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11529009) by [bratanimus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bratanimus/pseuds/bratanimus), [mrstater](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrstater/pseuds/mrstater). 



> This fic follows _Born of Light_ and may not make sense if you haven't read that! It also overlaps [To Market, To Market](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14604909). Thanks to Bratanimus for beta-reading!

Water drummed against the steel bottom of the kettle as Obi-Wan filled it at the kitchen tap. Yawning, he rubbed the crust of sleep from the corners of his eyes and gazed blearily out the window above the sink. Blossoms in hues of fuchsia, orange, and the occasional yellow still painted the desert landscape, though less vividly than they had several weeks ago when the sudden late summer desert rainstorm coaxed their dormant seeds to life. He'd enjoy the picturesque view of the hovel's yard while it lasted--which wouldn't be for much longer. The eopie, Mitali, heavy with calf, had long since devoured the flowers that sprouted up in the boundaries of her split rail pen and in her grazing area beyond, and now looked expectantly toward the house, awaiting her morning Anoat oats.

"Morning tea before barn chores, Madam," Obi-Wan murmured, shutting off the tap.

" _Kriff._ "

The curse from the refresher stopped him en route to the stove. For a moment he stared through the small kitchen to the door, but he didn't call out to ask what was wrong; he could work that out for himself. Acknowledging his own pang of disappointment, he let the feeling go, then padded across the kitchen to the stove. Placed the kettle on the burner, lit it. Pivoted to the refrigeration unit and began to take out food for breakfast and compose words of encouragement for when Sabé came out.

He heard the toilet flush, the rush of the 'fresher tap, and turned just as the door creaked open. But Obi-Wan had no words, encouraging or otherwise. He simply stared at Sabé, a pale mirror of himself with disheveled hair and wearing sleep clothes. Silence hung between them, reminding him of their painfully awkward early days after he brought her to his hovel in the wastes. Finally, they both opened their mouths to speak--he had no idea what he intended to say--only to be interrupted by the kettle's blast.

Obi-Wan moved to take it off the burner.

In the quiet when his back was to her, Sabé said, scarcely louder than the trickling sound of him filling the teacups, "Not this month, I'm afraid."

The disappointment he'd tamped down before reared again. Setting the kettle on a woven trivet, Obi-Wan wheeled to face her. Sabé's lips twitched into a small smile. _Brave_. He returned it, but the courage to speak continued to elude him. Instead, he reached out to her, and she came into his embrace, tucking her head against his shoulder. He brushed his lips to her temple--but felt her brow buckle in a wince against him.

"Headache?" he asked, and she _mmm_ ed in reply. Kissing her head again, he instructed her to go back to bed while he made tea and a heat pack, as he'd learned provided relief from her menstrual cramps.

Sabé slipped from his embrace. Rather than go to the living room, however, she shuffled into the hall, pulled open the trap door to the cellar, and plodded down the steps. She must need a moment to herself. Feeling much the same, Obi-Wan went on with making breakfast and heating a soft cotton bag of rice.

"These things take time," he said aloud.

"They do, indeed," Qui-Gon's ghost replied. "Time, as I've often heard you say, is the one thing you have an abundance of."

"Truly, I never expected it to happen immediately." Through the shimmering form of his old Master, Obi-Wan saw the flowers in the yard, the portly eopie nosing about in the scrubby dust of the pen. "Nevertheless," he added with a sigh, "I had hoped…”

“I know, young one.”

The depth of Qui-Gon's voice felt like the press of a strong hand on his shoulder. A moment later, the warming unit dinged, the rice pack heated. Obi-Wan carried it on a tray with tea, flatbread with pallie preserves, and sausage to the cellar, feeling slightly more up to the task of reassuring his wife about their disappointment.

He found Sabé leaning over the table where their newest batch of seedlings sprouted beneath a grow light--Naboo lettuce, the only variety of their first lettuce crop that hadn't succumbed to root rot. She trailed her fingertips over the tender buds, hair hanging in loose waves around her shoulders, lips parted slightly as though she were crooning to the plants. Like a mother over a child's cradle. As she one day would.

Obi-Wan placed the tray on the workbench and noted a holobook Mari Starfall had lent Sabé on childbirth. A paper calendar lay open next to it. In red ink, she'd scratched an _x_ on the square representing today's date. His eyes darted up to the earthen wall at the foot of the staircase, where he used to keep time in hatch marks, but now was covered up by duraplast columns which held a rainbow of carrots with long, curling stems. _Life everywhere._

Movement in his peripheral drew his gaze back to Sabé. Her arms curled around her middle in a pose of evident discomfort. He picked up the heat pack, its warm weight comforting in his palm, though he knew her hurt ran deeper than physical cramps. Standing close behind her, he moved her hands from her abdomen and placed the pack on it. She covered his hand with hers and relaxed against his chest.

"It was only our first try," Obi-Wan said, massaging the fingers of his free hand above her hip.

"True. One can hardly expect to do a thing perfectly the first time." She sounded more herself now, voice less strained with an attempt to put a brave face on the situation, and she scuffed her fingers in the grooves between his knuckles.

Obi-Wan held her more firmly against him and kissed the place where her jaw met her ear. "Fortunately, trying is such an enjoyable endeavor."

"We'll try again," Sabé agreed.

~*~

A bucket of water in each hand, Obi-Wan shouldered through the eopie shelter door. Mitali greeted him with a bleat--and the breaking of wind.

"And a good morning to you, too, madam," he said, trying not to choke. "It would seem your condition has exacerbated your flatulence."

The eopie gave another bleat, then heaved herself up from her bed of straw to her feet. As Obi-Wan emptied the contents of the buckets into her trough, she lumbered over and immediately put her head in to slurp up water.

"It can't be easy, gestating for more than a year. And you've still rather a long time to go." He set the empty buckets on the ground and patted her bulging side. "Keep your chin up."

She raised her head with a snort and, snout dripping, blinked at him meaningfully until he delved into his tunic pocket and took out a handful of Anoat oats. He stroked her muzzle as she ate from his palm, then she went out to graze in the fenced part of the yard while he mucked the stall and filled the food trough with fresh straw.

On his way to the vaporators, the remains of the once-brilliant blooms crunched beneath his boots, crumbling to dust. When would the phenomenon occur again? Not for years, perhaps. But rather than despair at the rarity of beauty on Tatooine, joy bloomed deep within him that next time, there might be a small child to delight in it.

Energized by the thought, he quickened his stride. The sound of the dead flowers breaking underfoot was like fallen leaves, which made it seem almost like autumn here, where little differentiated the seasons except for the shortening and lengthening of days. He inspected the vaporators and, finding both in good working order, returned indoors.

The house was still and silent, so Obi-Wan tried to be, too. Sabé had woken earlier with a headache, and he'd insisted she stay in bed and sleep in while he did the outdoor chores. He toed off his boots by the side door, padded in his sock feet to the kitchen step--feeling the cool of the floor through a hole in one heel--and saw a tangle of unbleached cotton sheets piled in the middle of the bed, but no Sabé. Was she feeling better? Or worse?

In either case, the solution was the same. He took the kettle from its burner and went to the sink to fill it. A sound from the refresher made him stop with his hand on the tap.

Not the flush of the toilet.

A sniffle.

_A sob._

The kettle clanked down on the counter; Obi-Wan leaned into the edge as he drew deep breaths through a constricted throat and blinked back the tears that welled in his eyes.

After a moment, the toilet flushed. He pulled himself together, straightening up, swiping fingertips over his eyes, and swinging around toward the 'fresher just as the door opened. Sabé stopped, eyes round and red-rimmed.

They stared at each other for an eternity, then her voice rasped into the silence: "Not this month, I'm afraid. Again."

Her lips twitched in an attempt at that brave smile she'd offered the month before as she delivered the same pronouncement, but her face crumpled, and she cried. Obi-Wan reached for her, hand on her head cradling her against his shoulder. He felt her tears through his sleeve as she clutched his tunic, twisting it in her fingers.

"I know it's foolish to hope--"

"It's _never_ foolish to hope," he said.

Sabé shook her head against his shoulder, then raised her tear-streaked face to him. "That it would happen right away? That it would be easy? When has anything ever been easy for us?"

It was true enough--Obi-Wan had said much the same to Qui-Gon's ghost after their first disappointment. Nevertheless, he must have looked taken aback, or inhaled sharply, because Sabé let go of his tunic and swiped at the tears rolling from the corners of her eyes.

"I'm sorry," she choked out. "This isn't me…I just need a moment."

Obi-Wan nodded. "Of course." He watched her make her way down the short length of the hall to the cellar door. It was the only place one could go to be alone, except for outside, and the garden comforted her. He hoped it would, anyway. As he had not been able.

He remained rooted where he'd held her until he could no longer hear the scuff of her bare feet on the creaking steps, then resumed the task of boiling water. As he went to the pantry shelf for tea, his gaze was caught by a small paper packet containing the contraceptive herbs he'd brewed up until recent months.

"Am I asking too much of her?"

"Did you ask Sabé for a child?"

Obi-Wan faced the transparent blue form of his Master, who had materialized in the kitchen. "Technically, she asked me." That morning when they'd been in awe of the miraculous desert flowering. _Let's make a life here._

"Does that not answer your question?" Qui-Gon asked.

"Perhaps." Obi-Wan replied with a slight shrug of his shoulders.

"Then perhaps I am not the one you should be asking."

With an upward twitch of his eyebrows, the ghost faded away, while Obi-Wan was left shaking his head and chuckling softly to himself. Death had not changed his Master.

Qui-Gon was right, of course. If there was any doubt, he needed to discuss this with Sabé. Silence and the uncertainty it brought were never the right course. They'd learned that lesson. Still, Obi-Wan puttered in the kitchen, drawing out breakfast preparations to give her the time she'd asked for to collect herself. It was the one thing he could give her, if not a child. _For now._

Sabé glanced up at him as he descended the stairs with a tray. Beneath the grow lights where she tended their seedlings, her tears appeared to have stopped, though she didn't speak. Following her lead, Obi-Wan didn't, either. He carried the breakfast tray to the workbench. The calendar displayed a fresh red _x_ marked on today's date. His eyes scanned back to the squares in the middle of the month which she'd marked as fertile days, as Mari Starfall explained to her, and then in turn Sabé to him--to his fascination. How could he ever have held the human body in such low regard-- _crude matter_ \--when it contained the beginnings of life itself? Sabé's body and his own were no exception.

"I'm sorry."

Obi-Wan looked up to see her watching him from across the cellar. At once, he moved toward her around the edge of the workbench. "You don't need to apologize for--"

"I haven't even said what I'm sorry for," Sabé interrupted. The slight smile on her lips didn't reach her eyes.

Obi-Wan stopped and bowed his head, ceding the conversation to her.

"I'm afraid, Obi-Wan. What if I become pregnant and something happens? What if I don't conceive at all? What if prison and illness…What if I _can't_? And we've built up all our hopes…"

She let the thought dangle, but Obi-Wan waited until he was sure she wouldn’t continue before he said, "Then we'll cope with it. _Together_ , as we've coped with heartbreak before."

Her dark eyes shimmered in the light. He watched the sharp rise and fall of her chest. And then she crossed the floor to him, arms circling him and slender body pressed tight against his.

"For what it's worth," he said after a moment, "I think what you've marked on your calendar indicates that it's unlikely you won't conceive at all. You're healthy now, and of prime childbearing age. But Sabé," he added, drawing back to meet her gaze, "if it's too much…If you're not ready, it doesn't have to be right now. Or..."

_Ever._

It wasn't as if he'd lived his life expecting to someday have a child, or wanting one. But the mere thought of not now felt like loss, and something deep within in him grasped for the child who had yet to exist.

Sabé's hand squeezed his arm; her other touched his cheek. He leaned into her warm palm and lost himself in the reassurance of her gaze. No, he needn't fear their desires no longer aligned, that the happy future they'd envisioned was not to be. This was just a moment of darkness encroaching on the light. It would pass.

"Our garden came together by the book," she said. Her eyes glistened as her grin widened. "And with a little Plant Surge. I don't suppose there's a pregnancy equivalent?"

Obi-Wan gave a snort of laughter. "No, procreation wasn't exactly a Jedi priority."

"It happened almost effortlessly." She shrugged. "I suppose I expected this to be the same."

"But we put a great deal of effort into the garden. Remember how many trips we made to Mos Espa for the supplies? Dealing with the Jawas for our tower parts and cistern?" His week-long hibernation trance to store up enough water, and the solitude she'd endured. None of it had happened easily, or quickly--especially not during those endless desert days.

They'd thought they were simply preparing to plant a vegetable garden.

After several moments' silent reflection, he felt her emotions steady.

"I am ready," Sabé said.

Obi-Wan kissed her, long and deep. "We'll try again."

~*~

The tea had just finished steeping when Sabé emerged from the refresher.

"Perfect timing," Obi-Wan said, grinning as he turned to face her with a mug.

She thanked him with a smile, cradling it to her chest in both hands, and stood at the sink to peer out the dust-coated window at the eopie pen. For a moment he admired her, lovely in the soft morning light, though she wore only rumpled sleep clothes and her bedhead was barely tamed, as if she'd combed her fingers quickly through.

Although outwardly Sabé was quiet, in the Force she was anything but. The very air pulsed--with excitement, or nervousness, or both. Obi-Wan slipped an arm around her, and looked out the window with her, sipping his own tea. Mitali lumbered around the pen, grazing.

"Nine months to go for her," he said with a shake of his head. "Such a lengthy gestation."

Sabé raised her tea to her lips and kept it there for what felt like long enough to drain the entire cup. It wasn't, and she didn't, of course. When she lowered it, stepping away from Obi-Wan to place it on the small counter space by the sink, steam curled upward.

"I'm late," she said.  

Obi-Wan's heart thudded in time with the energy he felt Sabé radiating. He set his mug beside hers, looked at her, and echoed, "Late."

He knew it already, actually, for he'd been unable to stop himself keeping a discreet eye on her cycle tracking calendar. He hadn't said anything, however, for fear he'd misunderstood how this all worked. It was Sabé's body, after all, and therefore her news to share if and when she deemed right. But Obi-Wan reached for her hand. She turned her face toward his, and her eyes glinted gold in the morning light just before they darkened again with a guarded expression.

"Just a few days."

"But you've been right on schedule for months."

Sabé gave a slight nod, the beginning of a smile. "I could really just be late, though. The expectation…"

"We can only wait and see. Unless it's not too early for one of those tests?"

"I should be at least a week late for that. Maybe more."

"Then we'll wait." Obi-Wan drew her hand up and pressed his lips to her knuckles. "We know all about that."

For once, they had an end to their waiting well within sight. Only a week.

He'd forgotten how long a week could be on Tatooine. The daily routine, though consisting of more activities than it used to, couldn't be accurately described as _full._ Time still moved slowly, with too many lulls for thinking. Her probable--possible--pregnancy seemed to be all Obi-Wan could think of. Tension also made the days seem long, though technically they were shorter as autumn wore on. Sabé was on edge, sleeping poorly. On the rare occasions she managed to fall asleep quickly, she was frequently awakened by the need to relieve herself. Each time she entered the 'fresher, she appeared steeled to face a monstrous foe, only to emerge with a look of relief.

She didn't take a pregnancy test after a week. Or even after two. Obi-Wan didn't press her to do so. He knew she dreaded a negative result. Wanted to hold on to this hope for as long as she could. So did he. And another week passed.

They made love, as usual, only she squirmed away at his hands cupping her breasts, his lips on her nipples. Kissing her collarbones, the hollow of her throat instead, he asked, "Isn't that a sign?"

Sabé's pulse quickened, but she replied, "Sometimes my boobs are sensitive just before I start."

That evening, when they went down to the cellar to check on the garden, Obi-Wan consulted the calendar and saw she was within a few days of what would be her next period.  

"Won't you take a test now?" he asked. "I think it's safe to say you've bypassed this month altogether."

"I've skipped periods before," she replied, not looking up from the trays of Naboo lettuce. They were coming along nicely. Soon, they would be strong enough to transplant to the tower containers.

" _Recently_?" Obi-Wan prodded.

Sabé's eyes flickered up to meet his--he had her there--but her lips pressed into a colorless line.

"I don't want to pressure you," Obi-Wan said, souls scuffing on the packed earth floor as he approached. "But--"

"I'll do a test. In the morning."

That night, sleep eluded them both. Sabé tossed and turned, her legs restless. Obi-Wan got up to allow her the full space of the bed, huddling beneath his cloak on the bantha rug to meditate and hopefully calm his own feverish excitement. He transferred some of his peace to her, and eventually her twitchy limbs stilled and she dropped off to sleep.

However, a little before dawn she awoke groggily, even a little grumpy, snapping at him when he stroked her hair and asked if she was ready. "I'm sure this will be a waste of a test. Classic premenstrual mood swings."

 _Or pregnancy mood swings_ , he resisted the urge to say, settling instead on, "I'll make tea while you use the 'fresher."

"Are congratulations in order?" asked Qui-Gon, materializing in the kitchen as Obi-Wan removed the boiling kettle from the stovetop.

"We'll know in less than five minutes," Obi-Wan replied, stepping around the ghost to fill the mugs.

"The Force ripples with your excitement. You're positively giddy. I can't remember you being so since I asked you to be my Padawan."

Obi-Wan's cheeks ached from the attempt at restraining his grin. "I have a good feeling about this."

The 'fresher door opened, though Sabé did not emerge. Qui-Gon's ghost faded away, Obi-Wan feeling rather than hearing audibly his parting words: "I'll leave you two to your news."

Leaving the tea to steep, Obi-Wan approached the refresher. Sabé stared down at the counter, one arm folded across her middle, elbow propped on it, chewing her thumbnail. He didn't sense disappointment from her, only dread, so the test must not be ready yet. He stepped into the small space, put an arm around her and kissed her temple. She leaned into him.

"Whatever the result is," he said, meeting her gaze in the mirror as he took her hand in his, drawing it away from her mouth, "I love you, and I accept that it's the will of--"

_Beep-beep-beep! Beep-beep-beep!_

Sabé snapped toward Obi-Wan, away from the sink and the pregnancy test, burying her forehead against his shoulder. "I can't look."

He felt her heart pounding, a wild judder in the Force, and his own beating just as fast. He leaned reached around her and picked up the test.

Blinked at the results.

"It seems it's the will of the Force that you're pregnant."

Sabé raised her head, eyes huge. "You're joking. No." She squeezed her eyes shut, shook herself. "You wouldn't joke about that, especially not invoking the Force…"  

Laughing, Obi-Wan said, "Why don't you have a look for yourself?"

She snatched the stick from him, read the results, clapped a hand over her mouth, and squealed behind it. And then before he could say a word, her arm hooked around his neck, he held her around the waist, and they twirled and laughed…and wept a little, too.

"What did I tell you about trying again?" he asked, setting her firmly on the floor again.

Sabé smiled at him, eyes still moist but luminous. "Third time's the charm."


	2. Chapter 2

The teakettle had just begun to creak on the blazing red heating coil when Obi-Wan heard a louder sound from the refresher: the contents of Sabé's stomach emptying into the toilet. He sighed--she hadn't felt nauseated when she got out of bed, and he'd hoped that meant she wouldn't be sick this morning. Hastily, he switched off the cooktop, filled a cup with water, and went to her.

Sabé was doubled over on the floor, clinging white-knuckled to the toilet bowl as she gagged and heaved and retched into it. Obi-Wan placed the cup on the counter, then crouched beside her, tucking a few fallen waves of hair back into her braid, out of the way. He rubbed slow circles in the small of her back.

"Breathe," he murmured to her, a mantra. "Just breathe."

She tried, but each indrawn breath seemed to make her vomit again. Eventually, she had nothing left to bring up, though she continued to dry heave for some time. When that ceased, she crumpled into a trembling heap with her head in his lap.

Obi-Wan stroked her hair, massaging her scalp and the base of her neck. "And here I thought my cooking had improved considerably since my snake stew days," he said, but it really was no joking matter.

She'd managed to eat only the blandest of foods last night for dinner--for many dinners, now: flatbread and unseasoned roasted potatoes, a few bites of sandhawk, when they had it. Obi-Wan had taken up hunting duties, since going out in the heat--the sands scorched even though it was winter--for any length of time exhausted and nauseated her. With as little as she managed to eat, it seemed a waste of good meat.

"Water?" Sabé mumbled, muffled into his lap. She lifted her head a little, face and lips colorless, chapped and crusted with sick. "Could I have some water?"

Obi-Wan helped her sit up and get shakily to her feet. He kept an arm around her as she drank from the cup he'd brought. She only swished the water around her mouth, then spit it out in the sink. She'd learned from experience that if she swallowed, the vomiting would start all over again. Obi-Wan worried that she might become dehydrated.

He worried about many things.

"I'm so sorry it's like this for you," he said as he got her settled back in bed, where she typically remained, napping off and on for the remainder of the morning. "I wish I knew how to help. Should I ask Mari for remedies?"

Sabé shook her head weakly on the pillow. "Not yet."

Not quite a month had passed since they confirmed her pregnancy, but they hadn't yet shared the news with the Starfall family. Sabé wanted to keep their joy to themselves for a while, and Obi-Wan couldn't disagree with the sweetness of such a secret. She also wanted to wait until she felt able to celebrate with their friends, which was fair.

Beneath these practicalities, however, Obi-Wan sensed a darker emotion. She feared something would go wrong with the pregnancy. It was early days--although after the twelfth week, he'd read, the risk of miscarriage dropped considerably. So did the incidence of morning sickness, yet that showed no sign of abating.

"What if I tried Force healing?"

Sabé's eyes had closed, but her lips quirked in a smile. "There's nothing to heal me of," she said, hoarsely. "I'm pregnant. With a healthy baby, by all accounts."

Obi-Wan nodded, more for his own reassurance than for hers, since her eyes were closed. It was hard to believe there really was a baby, he thought, studying her thin form in the bed. That she hadn't simply fallen ill again. More often than he liked to admit, her restlessness, in addition to the morning sickness and the resulting exhaustion that kept her in bed, or weakened her when she was out of it, took him back to the nightmare of nursing her through Dantari flu and her slow convalescence afterward. But when he placed his hand over her pelvis, he felt the child's presence, bright and strong. She sighed deeply, asleep, and Obi-Wan left her to see about his own breakfast.

Smells set her off, so while the water boiled for tea, heObi-Wan munched flatbread and warmed leftovers from last night's bland dinner, trying not to think of how much better the potatoes and sandhawk would be with a bit of onion and garlic. Most especially he he avoided thoughts of peppers, which Sabé found particularly repugnant in pregnancy. It was a small sacrifice to make for her comfort. He'd eaten like this--without even the sandhawk--for two years before she came along. How had he survived?

At least she wouldn't smell the drizzle of honey in his tea. Leaning against the counter as he sipped, he looked out the dusty window over the sink at Mitali, who gazed back toward him waiting for her morning oats. She was too far away for him to see in detail, but he imagined her lazy blinks and her jaw working back and forth as she chewed her cud. When he'd finished his tea and reassured himself that Sabé had fallen asleep, he pulled on his boots and trudged outside to tend the eopie. The nighttime chill still clung to the air, though the ascending suns would soon burn it away. Sabé might find it refreshing, if she weren't utterly spent.

"Females of your species don't experience morning sickness, do they?" he inquired as he filled Mitali's food trough. In her enthusiasm for Anoat oats, she plodded over with perhaps a bit more speed than usual and, with much snorting, put her head in and set to work on her breakfast. "Sabé will have her appetite back soon, I hope. For two." He reached out and scratched the velvety top of her head. "I suppose it'll still be considerably smaller than the appetite of an expectant eopie."

Mitali's eyes flicked up at him, and she huffed into her trough.

"No offense intended, I assure you, madam."

A pungent odor filled the barn.

Obi-Wan choked. "But you intended _that_!"

Holding his breath, he finished his barn chores, then beat a hasty retreat. He checked the vaporators and climbed up onto the roof of the house to tend the solar panels.

"There must be something I can do to ease Sabé's suffering," he mused aloud as he cleared dust from the surfaces. The decreased daylight hours of winter made this task all the more crucial. Loss of power could spell disaster for the cellar garden.

"If she won't let you consult your friend," said Qui-Gon, materializing, his outline just visible against the bright blue backdrop of the sky, "you could always search for a remedy in Mos Espa."

"She couldn't bear the heat or the motion of the eopie. And I couldn't possibly leave her alone in her condition. It's hours there and back by eopie." Obi-Wan rocked back on his heels, squinting across the yard at the barn. "I'm not even sure I should ride Mitali on such long journeys anymore."

Qui-Gon _hmm_ ed. "You have quite the conundrum. But I am certain you'll arrive at a solution."

"I'm glad one of us is," said Obi-Wan, returning to his task.

"You've solved more complicated problems than this."

"Yes, that's true."

Obi-Wan cleared the last of the panels and turned once more to face his Master, but the ghost had disappeared. He'd been about to tell him that he felt less objective about this problem than so many he'd faced. He supposed that the solution was simply to be more objective. To detach himself from his emotional entanglement and do what he could.

He sat, crossed his legs and closed his eyes, and meditated. The suns climbed over the dunes, their warmth on his face, and he almost believed he was in one of the bright meditation rooms of the Jedi Temple spire. For a moment, he allowed himself to luxuriate in memory, before he released it. That was then. Now was the flat rooftop of his desert hovel, beneath which Sabé slept while their child grew within her. And further below, their garden. _Now. Here. Grow._

After he meditated, he went back inside. Sabé was still asleep, so he crept down to the cellar.  Some carrots were ready for harvest, and he plucked a few ripe tomatoes off their vines, as well. The makings of a lovely salad, if only their Naboo lettuce was ready, but it hadn't been long since they'd transplanted the seedlings to the tower. A few more weeks--and surely by then Sabé would feel like eating it. But the heads of lettuce appeared smaller at this stage than the last crop had, and, on closer inspection some heads had curling, yellowed leaves.

Sabé appeared, descending drowsily through the trap door, and caught him rubbing his beard as he contemplated the lettuce.

"What's wrong?" she asked, coming fully awake and hurrying the rest of the way down. Her fingers trailed over the unhealthy foliage. "Are they getting enough light? Nutrients in the water?"

"I don't know. Perhaps we might call Mari about this." If not about morning sickness. She could look in on the garden and spend a morning with Sabé, and perhaps Obi-Wan could borrow the Starfalls' landspeeder for a quick trip to Mos Espa.

"Yes, we should," Sabé agreed.

A hand in the small of her back, Obi-Wan gave her a gentle nudge toward the stairs. "After _you_ get some nutrients. Do you feel up to some flatbread?"

Sabé _mmm_ ed as she climbed up, Obi-Wan following. "Toasted. With a little cinnamon. And I'm craving bristlemelon."

Foods with actual flavor! She must be feeling better--not that she hadn't craved things before that she ended up bringing back up. But they'd hope it stayed down, or at least some of the nutrients would make their way into her system first. He'd have some cinnamon flatbread and bristlemelon with her, though he'd already eaten.

In the hall, Sabé turned back to peer down through the trapdoor into the shadowy cellar. Arms wrapped around herself, she asked in a small voice, "What if they don't make it?"

Obi-Wan wrapped his arms around her and gave her an answer it seemed he'd given a lot of late. "Then we'll try again."

~*~

Water trickled over the tea leaves, spiraling steam upward along with the fragrance of ginger. Obi-Wan inhaled the aroma with gratitude as he filled two mugs. The tea recommended by the Ho'Din herbalist in Mos Espa had been just the thing to cure Sabé's morning sickness. Well, perhaps _cure_ was too strong a word; she still awoke nauseated most mornings, but ginger settled her stomach. Not only tea, but ginger snaps, too. He took a few from a canister on the pantry shelf and placed them on the saucer with Sabé's mug. After a moment's hesitation, he got a couple for himself, too.

After he strained the tea, he carried the two cups and saucers to the living room and set them on the low table beside the bed. Sabé lay on her back, eyes closed, but she wasn't asleep. Her chest rose and fell with deep indrawn breaths and long exhales--an attempt at quelling nausea.

Her lashes fluttered, then parted to reveal her dark eyes.

"You looked like a sleeping princess in a fairytale, coming awake."

"Did you kiss me?" Sabé asked.

Obi-Wan shook his head. "How remiss of me," he said and leaned over the bed to brush his lips softly to hers.

"I'm sure fairytale princesses don't have morning breath," she said as he drew back to sit at the edge of the bed, facing her. She grimaced. "Or morning sickness."

He already had her tea in hand. Pushing on her elbows to sit upright, she said, "If I'm a princess, I guess that makes you the fairy god…husband."

Obi-Wan chuckled as she took the mug and saucer from him, then reached for his own.

"Fine parents we'll make," she said, dunking a ginger snap in her tea, "regularly eating cookies for breakfast."

"The herbalist recommended it," Obi-Wan countered, "therefore it _must_ be healthy." Since they'd discovered Sabé could keep ginger snaps down, he'd baked batches with greater regularity than flatbread. "My waistline, however, may not support that theory."

"I appreciate your solidarity with your pregnant wife," Sabé quipped, "but you may regret it when it comes time to get the weight back off."

Her gaze fell to the loose nightshirt pooling in her lap. On more than one occasion, he'd caught her standing in front of the refresher mirror, pulling up her shirt to examine her abdomen from various angles, furrows forming on her brow. Although more filled out than she'd come to him a year ago, emaciated from inadequate prisoners’ rations and her illness, her slender frame still showed no signs of the baby she carried. Mari Starfall had assured her that her belly would pop soon enough; four months was still early to show much, and Sabé had a long torso, which apparently meant it might take longer for a first pregnancy to show. Her body revealed other signs of the life within: thickening, lustrous hair, larger, tender breasts.

"Still," she said, polishing off her ginger snaps, "I should try for a more nutritionally-balanced diet, now that I'm starting to feel better."

Obi-Wan nodded, but told her, "Try not to worry too much about it. Eat what you can keep down, and the baby will receive adequate nutrition." That was what Mari said, anyway.

Nevertheless, a few mornings later, Sabé awoke and declared herself fit as a fiddle. Without changing out of her sleep clothes, she pulled on her clunky boots, slung her cycler rifle over her shoulder, and went out to hunt.

Although Obi-Wan hated to discourage her when she finally felt well after so many weeks, he had a bad feeling about this. He didn't tell her so, nor did he urge her outright not to do it. He did go out with her, under the pretense of checking the vaporators and tending the eopie--both of which he'd already done before she woke. But what Sabé didn't know wouldn't hurt her.

His brow broke out in a sweat before he even made it across the yard to the newest vaporator. It was only mid-morning, yet the day already promised to be a scorcher. To his relief, Sabé stopped at the rise of the hill rather than hike down into the valley where she sometimes hunted small game among the scrubby desert brush. When she positioned her rifle at her shoulder and peered through the sight, he raised a hand to his forehead to shade his eyes as he looked up and saw why: a sandhawk, circling motionlessly on a thermal updraft. Obi-Wan's breath caught. They were noble creatures, and he would've preferred not to eat them, but survival on Tatooine left little room for preference, especially when it came to the survival of pregnant women.

He returned his attention to Sabé, still poised to shoot, finger on the trigger. The Force juddered just as her knees buckled, the rifle slipping from her hands.

"Sabé!"

Obi-Wan flung out a hand, staying her fall with the Force until he could sprint across the yard and scoop her limp form in his arms. He said her name again, shook her shoulder, stroked her cheek, but she didn't respond. Her skin had blanched beneath the sheen of perspiration. He carried her back to the house, Mitali mooing as though in concern when he went past her corral. In the cavern of his chest his heart pounded wildly as the memory rushed back at him of carrying her burning with fever from Mos Espa. He used the Force again to push open the door. She stirred almost as soon as he stepped inside, eyes opening on him in bleary confusion.

"Wha' happened?" she slurred.

"You fainted." He lay her on the bed, then strode to the kitchen for a cup of water and a damp rag. Returning to the bedside, he found her trying to sit up. "Don't." He bathed her brow, easing her back onto the pillows. "You're overheated."

"Got dizzy," she said, still breathless. Her pulse beat too quickly, as his own continued to do. "Where's…rifle?"

He'd forgotten it in the yard. "You were lucky it didn't go off when you dropped it."

She squeezed her eyes shut. "Sorry."

Obi-Wan pushed her damp hair back from her forehead, leaned in to press his lips to it. "I wasn't scolding you. I'm just thankful you're all right."

He helped her take a drink of water, small sips to avoid setting off the nausea. "Do you want to try some ginger tea?" he asked.

Sabé shook her head. "Too hot. The rifle?"

Assured she could manage the cup and cool compress, Obi-Wan hurried out to retrieve the gun. When he returned to the house, Sabé was edging her way down the hall, one hand on the wall while the other held the damp rag to her forehead.

"Sabé! Why are you up?" He sounded like he was scolding her again. Well, this time he was. "You could've fallen again." And this time he wouldn't have been there to catch her. He placed the rifle on the shelf above the cloak rack and went to her. He started to steer her back to bed, but she resisted.

"Too hot…The light…"

It beamed through the small windows on the east side of the hovel, warming the living room all morning until the suns climbed over the roof. The cellar _would_ be cooler. With a sigh and a swish of his hand, the trap door opened, and he put his arm around Sabé's waist to assist her through it.

 _Drip…drip…drip…_ The familiar sound of water trickling through the drip lines into the towers greeted them, and almost at once Sabé's strength seemed to return, her posture straighter, steps surer. Obi-Wan intended to guide her to the workbench, where she could sit in the swivel chair and rest while he went back upstairs to get water or tea or whatever she might want. As soon as they reached the foot of the stairs, however, she slipped away from him to inspect the heads of lettuce in the nearest garden towers.  

"We're losing them," she said, keeping her back to him. "Aren't we?"

They'd pulled off wilted, yellowing outer leaves a few weeks ago, but despite adjusting humidity levels in the cellar as Mari suggested, the crop continued to struggle.

"It could be any number of problems," Obi-Wan said, moving to stand beside her. The nutrient solution might be too strong, the grow lights too close or, ironically for Tatooine, the plants might be getting too much water. They could only test one variable at a time, trial and error. "We may just have to give up on this crop and try again."

"What if it just can't thrive here? It's native to Naboo, for kark's sake…" Sabé's voice broke. Her head fell forward, and she began to sob into one hand. When the other arm wrapped around her middle, hugging herself, he knew this was about much more than the lettuce.

"Oh, Sabé…"

"Mari says all of this is normal, but she's not an obstetrician. Without proper medical care…" She looked up at him, eyes bloodshot and watery, imploring him from the midst of her blotchy, tear-streaked face. "How can we know for sure?"

Clutching the front of his shirt, she broke down again. Obi-Wan held her, rubbing firm circles between her shoulder blades with his palm. He understood her fear, for these same questions had circled around him like carrion birds when he couldn't sleep. As with their garden, any number of problems might arise with a pregnancy, which they wouldn't know until it was too late. Even greater was his fear of the birth itself. The only childbirth he'd ever witnessed had ended in the death of the mother. Visiting a doctor was not a risk they would be wise to take. Had they been fools to take this one?

Sabé shuddered against him, soaking his shirt. Obi-Wan let the sound of her weeping recede in his mind as concentrated instead on the _drip…drip…drip_ of the irrigation lines bringing life to the fruits and vegetables in the tower planters. He inhaled and exhaled in time with the drip until his heartbeat matched it, too, and then Sabé's as peace flowed through him into her. He reached deeper, until he found something that made him gasp no matter how many times he felt it.

"What is it?" she asked, raising her head.

"We can know one thing for sure," Obi-Wan said. "I sense our child's presence. It's like a beacon. Thriving here."

More tears followed, this time of relief. When they subsided, Sabé dried her face on her sleeve, then, one by one, plucked the heads of lettuce from the towers.

"We'll try again."

~*~

"Tea's ready," said Obi-Wan with a glance over his shoulder. The refresher door stood ajar, blocking Sabé from view.

"Would you come here for a moment?" she called back to him. "I need you to look at something."

His heart missed a beat. He drew a breath and let it go, and his pulse returned to its normal tempo. He set the kettle on the cooktop and went to the 'fresher, gingerly pushing the door open. Sabé stood at the mirror, nightshirt pulled up to the bottom of her breasts, inspecting her bared abdomen in profile.

"Dare I say I've finally got a baby bump?"

Her eyes darted up to meet his in the mirror, but Obi-Wan's remained fixed on her pelvic region as he stepped further into the 'fresher and knelt. His hands went out to brush over the indisputably rounded belly. A faint brown line began at her navel and disappeared into her underwear. It blurred as his eyes misted, but a smile tugged at his cheek muscles.

"Well hello there, little one. I see you've decided to make your presence known at last."

Sabé's free hand came to rest over his. "In a much pleasanter way than by making your mother sick."

Impulsively, Obi-Wan kissed the bulge, then grinned up at her. "Didn't Mari tell you that one morning you'd wake up and have a bump?"

"It could just be bloating." Arching an eyebrow, Sabé added, "And isn't that awfully close to saying, _I told you so_?"

"I would never." Obi-Wan pressed one more kiss to her belly, gave it another stroke, then slid his hands around to the small of her back as he pushed to his feet. "Our child is thriving," he murmured, and his lips melded with hers.

Later, after they had their morning tea and breakfast, they changed out of their sleep clothes for the outdoor chores.

"I wonder how much longer I'll fit into my regular clothes," Sabé said, pulling on a pair of leggings. "Mari said she'd lend me some of her maternity things when I need them."

Over the next month, Sabé's bump seemed to grow larger by the week, but the flowing desert clothing accommodated her pregnancy. Wrap tunics could be belted looser, skirts and trousers worn lower on widened hips. Her feet, however, swelled so that she could no longer wear her battered old work boots. And her old bras were a lost cause.

"It's a shame for these to be concealed by so many layers of clothing, anyway," said Obi-Wan as he cupped her full breasts in his hands.

He was a little taken aback by his carnal reaction to the changes in her body. He stroked his thumbs over her darkened nipple, then took them in his mouth, each in turn. It was as if every single one of her cells proclaimed the miracle of new life, and the response to her fecundity was the very act that had brought it to be.

Sabé seemed similarly affected. Though she'd never been reserved with her body or shy about sex, it was as if awareness of her new voluptuousness emboldened her even more to touch him and to seek his touch. She woke him in the middle of the night aching for him, and he scarcely had to move his fingers to make her quiver and cry out in ecstasy.

When he asked her about it as they lay panting and tangled together in the sheets after one such encounter, Sabé shrugged and said, "It's the hormones"--which apparently was the answer to so many things. Nose crinkling as she smiled down at him, rocking her hips against his pelvis, she added, "Or maybe I just missed you all those weeks in the first trimester when I felt like poodoo. Or I'm storing it up for when I'm too huge to do it."

"Or for when we're both too exhausted by a newborn to want to."

There was something else Obi-Wan sensed in their lovemaking now. Not merely heightened desire, but a deepening of her need beyond physical release or even emotional intimacy. Perhaps it was a biological imperative for the female to be assured of her mate as her time of vulnerability, and that of the unborn child, approached. After all, he had witnessed firsthand what could happen when that faith was lost. Even as he enjoyed their frequent intercourse and deepening bond, it terrified him that he understood what it was that drove Anakin to the Dark side.

"But what benefit was it to Anakin to lose his soul," Qui-Gon reminded him while he mucked the eopie stall, "when he also lost whom he sought to save?"

After Obi-Wan finished the outside chores, he returned to the house and found Sabé in the cellar. The sight of her brought a smile to his face: her bump protruded enough now that she couldn't stand quite as close to the workbench as she was used to. One hand perpetually rested on it whenever she had a hand to spare, and right now she did as the other pressed seeds into the trays filled with musky-smelling soil. They'd taken a break from planting after their last failed crop, Sabé's emotions too frayed to try again, but it appeared she was ready now.

"Naboo lettuce?" he asked, noting the open seed packet beside the planter tray.

Sabé pressed a seed into the soil, burying it in a loose mound, gently as a mother putting her babe to bed. She met his gaze, eyes dark as the earth. "I think it'll thrive here. As we have." She rubbed a dirt-caked hand over her belly, then suddenly her eyes rounded. "Oh!"

"What's wrong?" Obi-Wan asked.

She shook her head and laughed. "Nothing. Everything is right. I felt the baby move!"

Obi-Wan put his hand to her belly, but felt nothing, though Sabé claimed to feel the movements several more times.

"It's only fair," she told him, "since you can feel our child in the Force."

He reached toward the bright presence and found it. Sabé's abdominal muscles twitched against him. "There it was again!" She looked at him in wonder. "I think the baby felt you!"

Obi-Wan's heart juddered in his chest. He'd had no idea...no idea at all that this sort of connection could exist between people. It was everything he'd ever thought he knew about the Force, but so much more. A light which cast away every shadow of doubt. Nothing could be more right.

Stroking Sabé's rounded belly, he leaned in and said, "You keep growing. I'll feel those kicks yet."


	3. Chapter 3

Mitali moved toward the water trough at a truly ponderous pace as Obi-Wan poured the contents of two pails into it. Sabé, he saw when he looked up through the open barn door at the sound of her calling his name, crossed the yard at a speed that was…surprisingly swift, considering her belly had grown enough now that her walk had begun to more closely resemble a waddle. One hand rested under it to support the weight; the other extended toward him, something small gripped between her fingers.

"What is it?" He dropped the buckets and went out to meet her.

"Your comlink," Sabé panted, placing it in his palm. "It's Owen Lars."

"Owen?" Obi-Wan echoed in surprise as he raised the comlink to his mouth. "Is everything all right?"

Over the past months he'd periodically reached out in the Force to the bright spot that was the Lars moisture farm and sensed only Luke's light.

"Been a spell since you saw Luke," said Owen in lieu of answer.

Sabé tilted her head and gave Obi-Wan a look that plainly said, _And whose fault is that?_

Thankfully Owen didn't expect him to respond to the fact that he'd effectively been asked to leave the farm last time, and his attempts since at restoring peaceful relations had been rebuffed. "Beru wanted me to invite you and Sabé for his birthday. He's turning three."

"That's…" Absolutely the last thing he--or Sabé, who stood gawking--expected Owen to say. "…very kind of Beru. We'll discuss it and get back to you soon. Today."

"Fine," Owen said, and nothing further, so Obi-Wan said goodbye, clicked off the comlink, and slipped it into his pocket.

For a moment, he and Sabé stood blinking at each other in the barn doorway, processing what had just been said. And not been said.

"Three years old," Obi-Wan broke the silence. "My."

Three years since he'd stood by helplessly at Luke and Leia's birth while their mother breathed her last. Three years since Anakin betrayed them. Since democracy crumbled and Obi-Wan went into exile. Since the nightmare of Sabé's imprisonment began.

"I wonder how Bail and Breha Organa will celebrate Leia's birthday on Alderaan," she said, smiling. "I'm sure it'll be a party fit for a princess." After a brief pause, her expression turned serious, eyes darkening as her gaze drifted over Obi-Wan's shoulder to Mitali eating behind him. "Obviously you should go to Luke's."

"You're not suggesting I leave you here?"

She shrugged. "You have before."

That stung, though she hadn't said it with malice. "I shouldn't have done. In any case, you weren't seven months pregnant then."

"And I can hardly travel across the desert seven months pregnant, can I?"

"How can I, when the eopie's even farther along?" He gestured toward Mitali. She could birth her calf any day.

Sabé had no immediate reply to that, and Obi-Wan turned from her to right the dropped water buckets and retrieve the rake to toss the straw in the corner of the shed.

"You could hire an eopie," she said. "Or even a speederbike. It's too bad mine's nowhere near ready…"

She'd been collecting scrap parts with the intention of cobbling one together herself so they would have a more efficient mode of transportation, but it was a slower process than scavenging for their garden towers.

"In any case, I can't leave you," said Obi-Wan. "If something happened while I was gone…What if there was a Tusken raid? Or a sandstorm, or Hutt tax collectors, or…"

Early labor. He kept that to himself, knowing how fearful she was about her pregnancy. Surely she was already thinking of it when she declared herself in no condition to travel so far. She'd been nervous enough a few weeks ago when Mari Starfall took them in the family's landspeeder to Mos Espa. He placed his hand on the swell of her belly and felt the push of a small foot or knee against his palm.

"You're on Tatooine to watch over Luke," Sabé said. "Not me."

She turned and made her way back across the yard to the house, while Obi-Wan stayed behind to finish his chores. As he worked, he sensed Qui-Gon hovering near, but couldn't bring himself to turn and face the ghost, or give voice to his conflict.

When he was cleaning the vaporator filters, Qui-Gon spoke. "Sabé makes valid points."

With a sigh, Obi-Wan glanced back over his shoulder at the ghost, shimmering against the pale morning sky. "Sabé is _right_. I am here to watch over Luke. And now that Owen Lars has opened the door to me again, it would be unwise to shut it myself."

He replaced the filters and straightened up, mopping his brow on his sleeve as he looked toward the house. Scrappy vegetation had begun to dot the yard as the days lengthened at winter's end.

"I'm learning firsthand how difficult it is not to place personal attachments ahead of one's duty."

"But contrary to Jedi dogma, one needn't forsake attachment entirely."

Although Obi-Wan didn't truly doubt his decision to start a family with Sabé rather than remain rooted unyieldingly in the old Jedi ways, it nevertheless was good to have his Master's approval. Qui-Gon's form moved with him as he walked back to the house, where he could see Sabé in the kitchen window, making tea.

"But what of my duty to them? To protect Sabé and our child?"

"Does going to Luke without her mean you must leave her _alone_?"

Qui-Gon had faded by the time Obi-Wan went in, but his words lingered as they sat down to eat the porridge Sabé had prepared for breakfast. For some minutes, he was so absorbed in the plan they inspired that he didn't think about her lack of conversation, until her disquiet in the Force jarred him. Abruptly, she turned from the window she'd been staring blankly out of, knowing that he'd sensed her emotions.

He reached across the table for her hand. "You needn't worry about Luke's birthday. I have a--"

"I'm not worried." Sabé withdrew her hand from his, curling her fingers around her mug instead. "I was just thinking how Luke and Leia have grandparents, an aunt and cousins on Naboo, and none of them has any idea that they're alive and turning three." The morning light made tears pooling in her eyes shimmer as they fell. She let go of her mug to wipe them away, then gripped Obi-Wan's hand. "You _have_ to go, Obi-Wan."

"I know."

Their conundrum had a simple solution: Mari Starfall and her mother, Jan Soren, would each stay a few days so that Sabé would have help with the farm chores...and in case trouble arose. Obi-Wan hiked on foot to Pika Oasis where, with a little negotiation, he managed to hire a speeder bike in good repair for a fair price; a little persuasion enabled him to do so without showing an identification or license. The bike would shorten his trip and allow him to return home quickly if need be. And  with his comlink, he would be able to speak to her every day while he was away.

"Luke's grown a great deal," he told her when he called to say he'd arrived safely at the Lars moisture farm.

"Did he remember you?" she asked.

"He did, indeed." The boy had run out to greet him, waving and calling, _Hi, Ben! Hi, Ben!_ "He remembered Nagpal, too. He pitched a bit of a fit when I told him Nagpal couldn't visit anymore." Obi-Wan couldn't yet speak of the slain eopie without a pang, and he heard Sabé make a sad sound. He added, "But not as big as the tantrum he threw when he discovered _you_ hadn't returned to name his toy animals."

"All my naming energy is going into thinking of baby names," she said with a soft laugh. "But tantrums? That doesn't sound like Luke."

"Beru says she'd expected 'terrible twos,' but it's three that's been the challenge. We'll want to bear that in mind, I suppose."

"Our child will never challenge us," Sabé joked.

In the Temple cr _è_ che, Jedi minders guided temperamental younglings in meditation with a simple mantra: _We control our emotions. Emotions do not control us._ Obi-Wan didn't share this with Beru and Owen, assuming that any reference to Jedi child-rearing methods wouldn't go over well. Anyway, Owen seemed to have Luke's outbursts well in hand, taking him to another room and speaking to him in calm tones until the boy settled.

It was evident that the two had grown close. During the few days of Obi-Wan's stay stay, Luke followed his uncle around the homestead nearly all day long, "helping" him with the vaporators and projects in the shop.

"He's got a real knack for machinery," Owen said with pride. "And that's just fine."

Obi-Wan did not mention that prodigious mechanical aptitude was one early manifestation of the Force, which Luke had inherited from his father.

On the last night, Obi-Wan dreamed of a son. A dark-haired boy with a cheeky grin, who hunted jakrabs in the rocky hillside below the house and slept in the cellar garden, among the growing things.

"So it's Ben Jinn, then," Sabé said when he called after breakfast to tell her he was heading home. He could hear the smile in her voice, which was a relief; she'd sounded a bit low-spirited since he left, though she insisted everything was fine with Mari and Jan, that she was only tired.

"It might only be a dream," Obi-Wan replied, also grinning. "Or a dream of a more distant future. This baby could be Ami after all."

"Did you tell Beru and Owen we're expecting?" She'd feared the news of her pregnancy might hurt Beru, after her recent miscarriage. But of course she'd asked why Sabé hadn't come with him.

"Yes," Obi-Wan replied. "Owen said he was sure I'd be very busy with my own family from now on."

"In other words, don't hold your breath for an invitation to spend Boonta Eve?"

"Precisely."

He arrived home the following afternoon, perspiring and pungent after his hike from Pika Oasis, but Sabé went straight into his arms and let him kiss her long and deep. With their bodies pressed close together, he felt the baby kick against him. He also sensed Sabé's need in the sweep of her tongue, not just from their separation, but something else. That sadness he'd detected, for which she needed comfort. When the kiss ended, she continued to hold tightly to him, head on his shoulder, trembling slightly from clinging so tightly to him. He wondered if she was crying. She drew back, and he saw her eyes shimmered with unshed tears.

After Mari left and he'd cleaned the travel grime off in the sonic shower, Obi-Wan descended the steps to the cellar where Sabé had told him she would be. The sound of sobbing greeted him.

"Is it the seedlings? He asked, hurrying the rest of the way down and to beneath the grow lights. But the new Naboo lettuce looked healthy; it would be soon ready for transplant. "Sabé?" He put his arms around her. "What is it?"

She was too overcome to speak, and he could only hold her as she cried. She did for some time, and after her tears subsided, she was too spent for conversation right away. Obi-Wan guided her to the workbench, and he sat in the swivel chair, drawing her into his lap. For a while longer, they sat in silence, her head on his shoulder, listening to the _drip…drip…drip_ of the irrigation lines. The baby kicked in time with it.

Finally, Sabé said, "I'd say that wasn't me, but apparently it's who I've become." She tried to smile, but he saw the tremor in her chin. "I've felt like crying for days, but I couldn't in front of Mari or her mother."

"Why?" Obi-Wan asked. Why did she want to cry, he meant, not why couldn't she do it in front of them, but Sabé understood.

"Because they made me miss mine. Jan talked about Mari's births. She was there for all of them and…"

Her voice broke, and Obi-Wan felt the warmth of her tears on his neck, sliding down his collar. His own throat constricted at the implication. He knew she missed her mother, but it had never crossed his mind that her absence would be yet another difficulty Sabé faced in giving birth in the desert. In becoming a mother herself.

"I know this is how it has to be to keep everyone safe," she said, "but I still wish she could be here. That our child could know his grandparents, and they'd know him." She sniffed, then tugged her sleeve down over her hand and wiped her face with it. "At least they know he exists. That's more than the Naberries have."

"I'm sorry," Obi-Wan said, unsure whether he was apologizing for Sabé's family or the Naberries.

Had he been selfish to ask this of her? To make sacrifices he hadn't even thought to consider? "Maybe someday, somehow, you'll see your parents again."

All they could do was try.

~*~

"Tea's ready," Obi-Wan called through the open cellar trapdoor. For a moment he lingered, waiting for a response, but he only heard _drip…drip…drip._ He descended the staircase. "Sabé?"

She'd gone down after they woke to check the Naboo lettuce, but now she stood at the workbench, chewing her thumbnail as she stared intently down at the papers scattered across it. Her other hand rested on her rounded belly. He smiled; she was so beautiful like this.

At last his movement drew her attention where his voice had not. She looked up, blinking. "Did you call me?"

"Tea." As Obi-Wan around the workbench to her, he glanced at the lettuce which, so far, appeared to have survived transplant to the towers. Standing behind her, he placed his hands on her belly and leaned in to kiss her cheek. For the moment, their child was still. "What do you find so engrossing?"

He peered over her shoulder and noticed the desk calendar. She'd circled today's date in red.

"A year since I came to Tatooine," she said.

"So it is." He nuzzled at her cheek again and murmured in her ear. "I saw you for the first time in fifteen years, and you greeted me by punching me in the face."

"I'm still not convinced you're not making that up. I was so delirious with fever, I have no memory of it."

Her belly shifted beneath his palms, bulging outward with the repositioning of of an elbow or knee. "If anyone had told me when I rode home with you half-conscious in the saddle that a year later you'd be eight months pregnant with my child, I would've said they were challenging me for the title of Barvy Ben."

"I would've agreed."

Sabé's laughter made the baby kick as she turned in his arms. As easily as Obi-Wan had grown accustomed to the way their bodies fit together, he didn't think he'd ever cease to marvel at feeling their child move. Even if her growing belly did keep him from pressing her quite as close against him as he'd like when their lips met.

A year ago she'd come to him, near death, and brought him back to life. In a little less than two months, a life they'd made together would come into the world.

When the kiss ended and they drew apart, she looked around the cellar, a frown puckering between her eyebrows. "Truth be told, I feel a bit like Mad Sabé these days. I'd love to ride off someplace."

Their world was small, mainly constrained to this cellar, the one-room dwelling above and the hillside surrounding it. Sabé had hardly seemed to mind. It was more room than she'd had during her eighteen months in prison, and she was _free_ , staying here was her choice. Occasional trips to Mos Espa and the Starfall homestead, Bestine and the Lars farm, broke the monotony. But now she was confined again, by her own pregnancy and that of their eopie. Giving birth wouldn't necessarily bring release. She never complained; admitting her restlessness was the nearest she'd come to it. But did she ever regret that choice to stay?

After breakfast, she went out to tinker with her speederbike in the relative cool of the spring morning. They'd accumulated more parts, including a body, some from a band of Jawas, some from itinerant junk traders; Wulfric Starfall brought scrap and salvage from his grandparents' podracer shop in Mos Espa; and they'd scavenged a bit themselves after a minor sandstorm. Obi-Wan kept an eye on her as he performed the outdoor morning chores, lest she overdo it and faint. If they'd had a speederbike, he reflected, she'd have been able to get out more during her pregnancy. At one point they would've been able to afford one, but they'd spent most of their sabacc and drinking contest winnings on the second vaporator, which was of utmost importance to their growing family.

"Are you ashamed of your poverty?" asked the ghost of Qui-Gon as Obi-Wan tended the older one. Ironically, the humidity sensor he'd purchased from Watto the day he found Sabé was playing up.

Obi-Wan felt his face flush. He was more embarrassed by the question than of his actual poverty. The Jedi did not value personal possessions. He'd lived his whole life without--though he had to acknowledge that life in the Jedi Temple certainly seemed a luxurious one compared to this.

"Not ashamed," he replied, scraping buildup out from the inside of the sensor, "but…shouldn't I be able to provide more?"

"Has Sabé asked for more?"

Through the open eopie shed doors, he saw her brow furrow as she fiddled with wires. He shook his head. "She makes do."

In the Force, he sensed no discontent from her. For now, what little he had to give her, what she found for herself, was enough. But what if one day, with a child's needs to meet, as well, it wasn't?

"Don't borrow trouble, young one," said Qui-Gon. "Today will bring enough of its own."

As Obi-Wan watched his Master fade, he squinted into the distance and saw, at the horizon, a rising brown haze. He reached out in the Force and felt the swelling power of distant wind, the unsettling of the earth. Life disrupted and redistributed. Gasping and choking, death throes and burial.

"This is not what we need right now," he said to himself, to Qui-Gon, to no one in particular.

The storm was not yet upon them. He maintained his calm in the deliberateness of the task before him, reattaching the sensor and making sure that both vaporators were clear of debris and had no loose connections. He filled two buckets for Mitali and carried them to the shelter, where Sabé continued to work, unaware of the coming danger. She looked up at him when he came in to fill the water trough.

"I'm afraid you'll have to pack it in early," he told her.

She wrinkled her forehead in confusion, then he pointed toward the open barn door. With effort, Sabé pushed up from the milking stool to her feet, shading her eyes with one hand as she looked across the dunes. Obi-Wan felt her fear spike, saw her put a protective hand over her belly, but then she, too, acted quickly, packing up her speederbike parts and tools. He dragged the frame out of the doorway into the corner, where he secured a tarp over it. Sabé topped off Mitali's food trough while he brought the eopie in from grazing. She stubbornly kept her head down, tearing up the new vegetation, and refused to budge until Obi-Wan slapped her flank.

In the barn, Sabé stroked Mitali's muzzle. "I know, love," she murmured. "I know, I don't want to be cooped up indoors, either, but there's a storm coming."

Obi-Wan touched the small of Sabé's back. "Time for us to go in."

The storm was approaching fast, the wind whipping at their clothes when they exited the barn, pelting them with specks of dust. Obi-Wan shoved the door closed, leaning his shoulder into it as he secured the latch. Turning around, Sabé's eyes implored him. "Will Mitali be all right?"

"We must hope so." Obi-Wan put an arm around her to guide her back to the house.

Safe indoors, they scrambled to prepare, filling canteens and the kettle just in case.  The cellar cistern was full, but Obi-Wan would never forget the time when it hadn't been and sprung a leak. Thank the stars for the second vaporator. They gathered the flashlights, lanterns, and extra batteries they'd acquired in the months after the first sandstorm Sabé endured here, when they lost power and retreated to the cool dark of the cellar. Since then, they'd gradually stockpiled tinned foods and protein rations, and had even learned to can the excess from their own garden stores. Even if the storm lasted a fortnight, they'd outlast it--at least with regard to provisions.

He watched Sabé as she stood beside the dining table, watching the storm blow in through dusty windows. The tasks had calmed her initial burst of fear, but he sensed how hard she was working to keep her anxieties at bay as it approached. Or was it that he knew the struggle against his own?

With everything in order, there was nothing for them to do but carry on as usual. Obi-Wan mediated, while Sabé worked on a knitting project and napped. They prepared and ate their noon meal and passed the afternoon reading together and playing sabacc. Sabé took another nap. The storm advanced, but the waning light through the coated windows largely matched the westward movement of the suns, so they hardly noticed a difference, except for the incessant howling of the wind and the pelting of sand on the roof and walls.

"It would be nice to have some music to drown it out," Obi-Wan remarked as they lay awake in bed that night.

"Soon we'll have a baby to help with that," Sabé replied.

"True…then we may find ourselves wishing for a sandstorm to drown out the baby."

Eventually, they fell asleep, though it seemed not for long when they woke in darkness. Not pitch dark, but like the middle of the night with a full moon shining. But as Obi-Wan's grogginess cleared, the sound reminded him of the sandstorm and he realized: the windows were completely covered. They still had power--for now--though the solar panels were likely buried too deep to collect any more sunlight. Soon, they'd be running off the backup generator, if they weren't already.                               

"Mitali will be expecting us," Sabé said, eyeing the opaque kitchen window as they waited for their morning tea. Her voice sounded taut, and Obi-Wan observed the accompanying tension in her jaw and neck. The Force juddered with her fear, yet she still held it back. "Do you think she's okay?"

Reaching out beyond the walls of the hovel, Obi-Wan said, "I sense no distress."

The day passed much as the one before, though Sabé lacked concentration for sabacc, losing every hand to him. She couldn't sit still to knit, either, getting up to pace when he attempted to read aloud and frequently asking him to repeat passages.

Shortly after noon, the wind's fury swelled. A wrenching sound, metal screeching as it bent, pried loose, drew their eyes ceilingward. The solar panels. Their heads snapped toward the door at the thunder of heavy objects striking the ground, like the fallen wreckage of a starfight. Obi-Wan passed a hand across his forehead, massaging his temples. He hoped the panels would be buried by sand where they fell and not carried far to be scavenged by Jawas or junkers…or other hapless homesteaders.

"Is the eopie shed still standing?" Sabé asked.

Obi-Wan looked up to see her in front of the side door. He leapt to his feet and in an instant was by her side, just as she reached for the handle.

"We _cannot_ go out," he told her, hands on her arms to draw her away.

"But Mitali and her calf!" She struggled against him.

"They're still fine. Even if they weren't, what could we do for them in the storm?"

Sabé's chest heaved with her rapid breathing, and perspiration rolled down her face and neck.

"Come." Obi-Wan waved his hand to open the cellar door. "Let's go downstairs. It'll be cooler."

In the corner, they'd arranged their travel sleeping bags in a makeshift bed. He guided Sabé to it, gave her one of the water canteens, then went back up to collect their pillows and blanket. They lay down together, both their palms resting on her belly, and soon the steady _drip…drip…drip_ lulled them to sleep.

Obi-Wan dreamed of fear and pain. Of an eopie's eye darting frantically, seeking reassurance and peace. Nagpal, no…

"Obi-Wan." A hand shook his shoulder. "You're talking in your sleep."

He opened his eyes and saw Sabé's face above him, a strange greeny-white in the fluorescent glow of the battery-powered lamp; the grow lights must have timed off. Or the power had gone out. _Drip…drip…drip._ No, they still had power. Obi-Wan sat up and breathed in time with the dripping until his heartbeat slowed. Sabé stroked his hair back from his face.

"Were you dreaming about Nagpal?" she asked, a quaver in her voice.

He shook his head as the dream images--no, impressions--came back to him. "Not Nagpal."

Closing his eyes, he cast out into the Force. There was Sabé, her fear like climbing vines, ensnaring and strangling. He pushed past it. Life forms nestled in the packed earth walls of the cellar, oblivious to the tempest above. He wanted to linger there and absorb some of their peace, but he pressed upward and ahead, into the sandstorm. The Force there was such a whirlwind of chaos and destruction that he felt disoriented. Ahead. Straight ahead, to the eopie shed and Mitali. Reaching her in the Force was like walking into the wind, but then she was there, and within her, the calf.

Sabé's fingers dug into his arm, drawing him back to the cellar. "Mitali?"

"She's suffering," Obi-Wan replied, meeting her gaze. "I don't know whether she's injured or--"

"In labor." Her gaze held his for one long moment, then she started to push herself to her feet. Obi-Wan stood to help her. "Is there nothing we can do ?" she asked, but didn't wait for him to tell her _not during the storm._ "We could lose her. And the baby, too." Sabé's arms encircled her own belly protectively. "I couldn't bear it, Obi-Wan, not after Nagpal…"

"All we can do is hope…and wait."

But even for two people as good at waiting as they, this tested them sorely.  

Nothing could distract Sabé now, not even sleep. Obi-Wan's worry mounted as he watched her pace the length of the cellar, eyes furtive, chewing her thumbnail and muttering to herself. Their surroundings slipped away and he saw her in her cell on the prison ship, himself one of the captive Jedi in the panoply, helpless to fight the darkness. They had no more idea of when the storm would end than she had her imprisonment.

On the third day, the grow lights turned off, and the _drip…drip…drip_ ceased.

"The backup generator's out," Obi-Wan intoned in the dark.

Sabé wept in his arms, bitter, wrenching sobs from her depths. "What if we lose everything?"

"We won't," he told her, raising up a hand to light the bioluminescent creatures who made their home in the earthen walls. "We'll still have each other."

His own grasp on hope was weakening, however. The garden might very well die. So might the eopie mother and calf. _There is no death, there is the Force_. Obi-Wan released them to the will of the Force, for this was the Jedi way. But what if Sabé's distress over them sent _her_ into premature labor? They had not prepared for that. How could let go of his attachments to her…to their child?

 _There is no death_ …He fixed his thoughts on the glowing creatures in the packed earth. _Life everywhere._ Yet life fed on decay, and the desert was a graveyard. All of them--plant, animal, human--might be buried here to nourish those other life forms.

Two days later, the sandstorm stopped.

Pale and wild-eyed, Sabé ran upstairs to the door, though experience had taught her to wait before opening it. Even without setting foot outside, they knew the sand piled up high around the house, for the sunlight only wanly penetrated the windows. Obi-Wan used the Force to sweep it away from the door so it wouldn't spill inside. Once freed from the confines of the hovel, they raced directly for the eopie shed, squinting against the blinding midday brightness.

After nearly a week of incessant wind, the silence rang in his head. Or maybe that was his pounding heart. Not a sound came from the barn. The roof seemed still to be fully attached, and no debris appeared to have ripped through the walls--a good deal littered the ground, however, which meant clean-up efforts would have to be quick before scavengers descended upon them. But all the intact shed meant was that Mitali had not been killed. She might not necessarily be alive.

"Stand clear of the door," he told Sabé, then waved his hand. Sand showered away from it like water from a burst pipe.

Sabé lunged for the door, grabbed the handle in both hands and wrenched it open. She took one step inside, then threw an arm in front of her face and coughed. Obi-Wan feared the worst as he approached, drawing the edge of his sleeve over his nose.

It was not the stench of death that nearly knocked him sideways.

Manure had never smelled so sweet.

Mitali, standing in the midst of it, bleated a greeting.

A calf suckled at her teat.

"Thank the Maker!" cried Sabé, throwing her arms around Mitali's neck and kissing her snout, then going to her knees in the straw beside the little one. She burst into tears--and laughter--as did Obi-Wan.

"You know what this means, don't you?" he said.

Sabé blinked at him inquisitively.

"You're going to have to think up another name for an eopie."

Once again, they had weathered a storm.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: fairly graphic descriptions of childbirth ahead.
> 
> And please forgive me for the delay in posting this! I got stuck for a few days before the solution presented itself. I hope the conclusion is worth the wait. 
> 
> As always, many thanks to Bratanimus for beta-reading!

Obi-Wan poured milk into the two steaming cups of tea with a flourish. He never used to take his tea this way, but now that they had fresh eopie milk every day, why not? They'd bought a used churn from some junk traders and learned how to make butter; it improved toasted flatbread immensely.

"I'm growing too accustomed to the finer things," he said, and his Master's chuckle rumbled in the kitchen, though the ghost did not form.

"What a decadent life you lead in your hermitage."

"Sabé?"

The scent of rominaria flowers filled Obi-Wan's nostrils as he approached the open 'fresher door, where she stood at the sink rubbing lotion over the swell of her stomach to prevent stretch marks. At full term, she looked bigger than he remembered Padmé being--and she'd carried twins--which alarmed him slightly. Surely there was no chance…? He shook off the thought like dust from a rug; he'd only sensed a single life in the Force. Nevertheless, the amount her skin had stretched to accommodate the growing baby made it most impressive to him that there were none of the spidery white marks Mari Starfall described. Not that they would mar her any more than her other scars. Sabé had done her due diligence with the lotion.

"How do you know it's actually prevented stretch marks?" he asked. "What if you just didn't get any?"

"We'll never know." She rubbed the last of the lotion in, then twisted the cap back onto the bottle.

As she turned to exit the 'fresher, a gushing arrested her. One hand braced against the door frame, the other pressed to the side of her belly. A wet spot spread over the hem of her nightshirt, and Obi-Wan followed her round-eyed gaze to the floor, where a not insubstantial amount of clear liquid puddled at her bare feet and spread toward his.

"Is that--?"

"My water broke," Sabé said in a strained voice, as if it were difficult to breathe.

His gaze darted back up to her face. "Another contraction?"

She nodded. Obi-Wan glanced at the kitchen chronometer. Twenty minutes since the last one. This had been going on for over an hour now, since the first pang roused them both from sleep. He'd sensed the shift in the Force even before he felt the physical movement in bed beside him, as Sabé sought a position to relieve the pain.

The contraction seemed to last for ages, but finally she gasped with relief, released the door frame, and straightened up.

"I suppose this means we're having a baby today," she said.

"So it would seem."

For several seconds, they stared at each other, processing this turn of events. She'd passed her due date two days ago, yet the birth had still seemed like a distant event. Now it was here. They both broke out grinning, then leaned toward each other for a kiss.

"We should get you back into bed," Obi-Wan said afterward, reaching for her arm.

"I'm standing in a pool of amniotic fluid. You are, too. We should probably deal with that first."

"Ah." His feet did feel sticky. "Yes, we should." He held up a hand, and the towel from beside the sink came to it. When he crouched to wipe her feet, Sabé laughed and carded her fingers through his hair.

"I think I'll just take another sonic shower. I've got time." She peeled off her nightshirt and underwear and stepped into the shower. Before she turned it on, she said, "Call Mari, will you?"

Obi-Wan cleaned his own feet and the floor as best he could with the hand towel. By the time he'd carried her soiled clothes down to the laundry unit in the cellar, pausing to circle today's date in red--their child's birthday!--the sonic shower had shut off. As he brought her a fresh nightgown, which seemed a logical thing to wear for labor and delivery, Mari Starfall's tinny voice crackled through the small speaker of his comlink.

"Is it baby time?"

"Her water just broke, and she's having regular contractions."

"I'll get my supplies together and be on my way."

No sooner had Obi-Wan slipped his comlink into his pocket than Sabé grabbed his arm as another contraction began. When it ended, he tried again to get her back in bed, but she wanted to be on her feet for as long as she was able. According to the holobook Mari loaned her, it would help the baby move downward in the birth canal and keep her contractions progressing. She went over her checklist of supplies, which were mostly already gathered and ready, and Obi-Wan fetched what had not been.

Over the past several weeks, their tiny living room had been transformed into a nursery. The Starfalls brought over a speederload of old baby things: clothes, nappies, linens, and toys, mainly, but also a cradle, which occupied the position where the dining table had been. ("We'll just have to be uncivilized and eat at the coffee table," Obi-Wan had said.) Sabé sewed curtains for the row of windows on that wall, to help the baby nap during the day, and Obi-Wan built a mobile out of scraps he'd found, featuring Tatooine and its moons, verdant Naboo, and Coruscant glittering with city lights. They'd temporarily packed up the contents of the display table so it could serve as a changing table. ("Permanently, in this case," he'd remarked of the spider-like vacuum droid, though Sabé argued that it would come in handy when they were too busy caring for the baby to sweep the floors.)

She had another contraction in the midst of their preparations. This time, she consented to rest for a bit. Obi-Wan reheated their forgotten tea and brought a light breakfast of buttered flatbread and sausage, for she'd need all her strength today. He sat beside her on the bed while they ate, watching her belly writhe as their baby shifted around in preparation to leave her womb. Eager as he was to meet their child, a part of him would miss this.

"Are the contractions terribly painful?" he asked.

"I've experienced worse," Sabé replied, and he knew she wasn't simply putting a brave face on it. "We'll see if I change my tune when they're coming harder and faster." Her wry half-smile faded. "It's all been so much more difficult than I expected."

Obi-Wan tucked her hair behind her ear, then pressed his lips to her temple. "I hope you know how much I admire the way you've borne it all."

Her dark eyes misted. "Do you really think so? Only I've felt like such a mess. I was sure you must be questioning the wisdom of having a child with me."

"Never. I only worried that you regretted putting yourself through this, after everything else."

Tears leaked from the corners of Sabé's eyes. When Obi-Wan brushed them away with his thumb, she caught his hand and kissed it. "It'll be worth it."

Despite the pain not being unbearable, the contractions did tire her. She managed to cat nap between them for the next hour or so, until a particularly strong one awoke her.

"That felt like less than twenty minutes," she said after she'd caught her breath.

"That's because it was eighteen."

At the whirr of a landspeeder engine, Sabé insisted on getting up and going with him to greet Mari. Somewhat to Obi-Wan's surprise, Sim had come with her.

"Are the kids at home by themselves?" Sabé asked.

"Wulfric and Dayne can hold down the fort till Mari's mom gets there," said Sim. "I thought Ben might need some moral support. Or torve weed," he added with a wink.

"Don't even think about it," Sabé gritted out through her teeth and another contraction.

After it passed, Mari went inside with her while the men unloaded the vehicle. In addition to small overnight bags, given the likelihood of Sabé's labor extending into the evening, they'd brought crates of supplies, including--as usual--food.

"That's most generous," Obi-Wan said. "You needn't have done that."

Sim waved him off. "Yes, we did need. Believe me, you guys aren't going to want to think about cooking for a few…" He paused, then amended, "…for a while."

As was so often the case, the kindness of their friends touched Obi-Wan. And he _was_ glad to have an experienced father here. So far Sabé was fine, yet he was well out of his depth, and the twins' birth hovered like a specter. Any number of complications might yet arise.

The women's chatter and--slightly surprising--laughter greeted the men when they went inside. Sabé, much to his relief, appeared to be nothing but glad for her friend's presence, and was not dwelling on those who were absent. Mari approved of the birthing supplies they'd acquired. She'd brought a few of her own things: herbs that would bring pain relief later and a curious-looking stool with a hole in the bottom, which she informed them would come in handy when Sabé got to the pushing stage.

"Which, I'm sorry to tell you," she said, eyes twinkling, "won't be any time soon."

For most of the morning, the Starfalls kept largely out of the way. Mari harvested some vegetables from the garden--including Naboo lettuce, which had produced a bumper crop--and puttered in the kitchen while Sim made himself useful around the farm, completing the outdoor chores Obi-Wan had all but forgotten, taking extra time with Mitali and her calf. They'd named him Marut, for he'd been born in a storm.

"I was a little surprised when you called this morning," Sim said, returning to the hovel. "Kinda thought Sabé'd decide to give birth all on her own like Mitali and only call to announce the baby was here."

Although Obi-Wan and Sabé chuckled, they exchanged a significant glance across the room. They hadn't shared the full circumstances Marut's birth--only that they'd opened the barn door after the sandstorm to discover that Mitali had delivered her calf. It made for an amusing story, a happy outcome of a disastrous event. All was well that ended well, and neither of them was  keen to relive the terror of those days when the helpless awareness of the animal's suffering stirred up anxiety about their own child.

"Considering that the eopie birth was meant to be my crash course in midwifery," Obi-Wan said, "it seemed wiser to call the professionals."

"I'm sure I would've been in good hands," said Sabé. Her eyes rested softly on him for a moment, then widened, pupils dilating with pain.

Obi-Wan went to her at once, kneeling beside the bed and rubbing a slow circle in the small of her back as she sat forward with the contraction. After it was over he started to withdraw, but Sabé said, "Oh, please don't stop."

He sat on the edge of the bed, slightly behind her, where he had a better angle to massage her.

"You're feeling the contractions in your back?" asked Mari, getting up from the chair at the foot of the bed.

Sabé nodded. "And between contractions."

"Back labor," said Mari said. "I had it the worst with Gunnar. Massage helps a lot." She gave Obi-Wan a look of approval, then pivoted toward the kitchen. "So does alternating hot and cold compresses. I'll go make some. Would you like a cup of tea, too? It can help with the muscle tension."

"That sounds lovely."

By the time Mari had prepared everything and returned with a heat pack for Obi-Wan to hold against Sabé's back, she was in the grip of another contraction. They were ten minutes apart now.

Time passed strangely, not in hours but in the minutes between contractions. Even as the intervals decreased, the duration of the contractions increased. By noon, they were coming every five minutes and lasting for nearly a minute at a time. (He only knew it was noon because Mari made lunch.) Sabé bore it courageously, the pain alleviated somewhat by the backrubs and Mari's remedies--although heat was unbearable to her now, as the temperature climbed with the twin suns. She still managed to get up and walk around the hovel; in fact, she seemed more comfortable on her feet than in bed. But Obi-Wan could see and sense her endurance flagging. She still had a long way to go, despite being close to what the pregnancy book termed "active labor." Mari encouraged her to eat a little flatbread and fruit, but Sabé could only manage to swallow a little water, the contractions nauseating her.

Standing on the cool tiles, she leaned her head against his shoulder, arms draped around his neck, while he wrapped supporting arms around her, fingers massaging the backs of her hips. They swayed slightly; between contractions, she joked, "We look like awkward teenagers at our first dance."

"Well, it would be mine," Obi-Wan quipped.

Sabé laughed, but it became a moan as her belly went rigid.

"Breathe," he told her softly. "Visualize the pain exiting your body with the breath."

She raised her head, and her narrowed eyes gave him the impression the only thing she was visualizing was possibly punching him in the face again. So Obi-Wan conjured the image of his hand on her back passing through the particles that formed her, skin, sinew, and bone, until he found the dark coiling pain and drew it from her.

"What was that?" Sabé asked, the tension having relaxed from her face. "And why didn't you do it sooner?"

Obi-Wan glanced at the Starfalls, who were staring. "Er, it's a technique for controlling other people's pain." He rubbed the back of his neck, which felt warm. "I didn't think of it right away because I've primarily only used it for battlefield triage."

"Well," Mari said, "if I ever have another baby, I know who I want to have around."

"Are you thinking of having another baby?" Sim asked.

His wife just smiled at him. Sim initially looked dazed, but after a moment, the expression changed to one of delight.

To Obi-Wan's dismay--though not so much as Sabé's--the next contraction revealed that his use of the Force had only controlled her pain during the previous one. So, he again reached in and took it from her…and again, and again…until the contractions came so close together and lasted so long that he had to be in a nearly constant state of meditation. It was a familiar, comfortable place for him to be, immersed in the light that transcended physical existence, but Sabé took no comfort in it.

"You may as well go smoke torve weed with Sim!" she snapped at him one interval when he'd returned to awareness. She needed him to be fully present, his voice murmuring words of encouragement, more than she needed pain relief.

"I'm sorry," he told her. "I just hate to see you suffer…"

"Should've thought about that before we decided to have a baby," she ground out through her teeth.

Obi-Wan was rather taken aback.

"Oh, this sounds familiar," he heard Sim say; Mari shushed him.

There was no time for hurt feelings. Sabé vomited. Her body began to shake uncontrollably as the pressure in her pelvis mounted.

"It's transition," Mari said. After examining her progress, she announced, "Almost time to push, Sabé!"  

 _Almost time._ That sounded encouraging, so Obi-Wan said, "Our baby will be born soon, love." He brushed Sabé's sweaty hair back from her forehead, kissed her, and said, "You're doing wonderfully…Your work is almost done."

She broke down sobbing. "I can't, I can't! I haven't done anything yet, and I'm already so tired…"

Obi-Wan looked to Mari, at a loss. She smiled at him and sat at the edge of the bed. "It's totally normal to feel like this at this stage. But you _can_ do it, Sabé."  

"I can't."

But despite her assertions, she bore down instinctively.

"Sim, the stool," Mari said. "Ben, help me get her up. _Ben_."

"That's you, young one," said Qui-Gon's ghost, hovering in front of where Sim placed the seatless wooden stool Mari had brought. "Breathe."

Obi-Wan did, and gave the same instruction to Sabé as he and Mari hoisted her out of bed.

"Yes, deep exhale," Mari added. "Picture the baby sliding further down the birth canal every time you release your breath."

When Sabé was settled on the stool, Mari knelt in front of her on a sheet Sim had spread over the bantha rug. Things were about to get messy, Obi-Wan realized. He batted away an unwelcome image of the sterile operating theater on Polis Massa where Padmé had delivered Luke and Leia.

Sabé gritted her teeth and groaned with another contraction. He clasped her hand, and her fingernails bore into it. He allowed himself to drift into the Force to take away a measure of her pain, but not so fully that he couldn't hear Mari telling Sabé to place her free hand at the top of her abdomen, under her breasts, and to focus her strength there.

"Work _with_ your body…It knows what it's doing."

Her body might have known what it was doing, but it took a long time to do it. An hour crawled by, then two. Shouldn't the baby be out by now? Was something wrong?

"This can take a while," Mari said. Had he spoken aloud? "I pushed for three hours with Gunnar. The good news is that you're two-thirds of the way there."

She tried to grin up at Sabé, but Obi-Wan could see the cracks in Mari's outward calm, sensed the heightening of her anxiety in the Force. He didn't ask, not wanting to alarm Sabé. A few minutes later, the answer presented itself.

"The baby's crowning," Mari said as Sabé panted and pushed. Obi-Wan would've expected more excitement to accompany this announcement. "Sunny side-up. No wonder you were having back labor. The back of the head was pressing against your tailbone."

"Is that a problem?" Obi-Wan asked.

Mari shook her head. "Just keep breathing, Sabé. Slow and easy so you don't tear. Reach down if you want. You can feel the top of the head."

Obi-Wan cringed at the mention of tearing, but Sabé did as Mari instructed, possessed by an intense resolve that showed no trace of her earlier breakdown.

"Head full of hair," she managed to grunt out. "Like Papa."

He gave her hand a light squeeze, then hers clamped around it with the next series of pushes. Even if he'd tried, he couldn't have let go of the physical to reach into the Force for her pain. It would be wrong to miss anything of this moment.

As it was, it still didn't seem real that Mari could be saying, "The head's delivered," or that he could be peering down from his place at Sabé's side to see the tiny, scrunched up face emerging from her body.

" _Dark_ hair," he told Sabé, who couldn't see over her belly. "Well, I think. It's wet and…gooey."

There was a heart-stopping moment when Mari told Sabé to hold up. The cord was looped around the baby's neck, but she slipped it easily free, and they breathed again, and after another series of pushes, the little body slipped out into Mari's waiting hands. With a final heaving sigh, Sabé slid off the birthing stool as Obi-Wan eased her gently onto the floor leaning back against him. He was vaguely aware of a lusty cry, and beneath it the sound of both of them laughing, until Mari placed the baby, unwashed, cord still attached, and naked, on Sabé's chest, and they all fell silent.

"He's beautiful," Mari said, wiping away tears. "I'm so happy for you two." She moved off with Sim to give the new family a private moment.

_He._

"A boy," Obi-Wan said, a knot in his throat.

"You dreamed of a son," Sabé whispered. "Ben Jinn Kenobi."

 _Ben Jinn Kenobi._ "Hello there, young one." He stroked Ben's hand, and the tiny, perfect fingers curled around his thumb. "Pleased to meet you."

Ben lifted his head up much more easily than Obi-Wan had known a baby could be capable of and stared at his parents.

"His eyes are blue," said Sabé, grinning at him.

"For now," Obi-Wan said, but he couldn't help but smile back. "Definitely dark-haired, though." He leaned in and kissed her, slow and deep, hoping he could convey the depth of love and gratitude for which he had no words. When she drew back to return her gaze to their son, he asked, "Are you all right?" 

"Never felt better," Sabé replied. "Or more exhausted."

Eventually, Mari returned to tend necessities. She brought a sterilized knife, which she offered to Obi-Wan for cutting the umbilical cord. It felt a momentous act, separating them by this last physical thread which bound Ben and Sabé together, but when he looked up at her, he saw that Mari had helped her put the baby to her breast, and he'd begun to suckle. They stayed like this for some time, until Sabé's contractions began again--with much less intensity--for the delivery of the afterbirth. She placed Ben in his arms, and Mari told him to go bathe the baby. At first he hesitated to leave Sabé, but when Mari commented about how the placenta made a nutritious broth, he made haste to the kitchen.

"Surely she's only joking about the broth," he murmured to Ben as he wetted a clean, soft cloth.

"She's not," Sim said.

Ben did not enjoy his bath and made his opinions on the matter loudly known.

"A child of the desert already?" Obi-Wan babbled to the baby. "One day you'll come to appreciate how lovely water baths are. Your mother will tell you tales of the lakes of her homeworld, and you won't believe them. Maybe one day we'll take you there…We could visit the Gungans in their underwater city…"

"You're a natural at this," said Sim, surprised that Obi-Wan already knew how to diaper and swaddle an infant; he'd had to learn when he brought Luke to Tatooine.

With his newborn son nestled in his arms, he didn't notice much of the flurry of activity around him. The afterbirth delivered and disposed of, Mari helped Sabé clean up, change into fresh clothes that would be easy to nurse in, and settle into bed. Obi-Wan relinquished Ben to Sabé but remained with them as the Starfalls dealt with everything else. He didn't even notice that the sky had long since darkened through the windows, or that his stomach was growling until Mari and Sim brought over plates laden with eopie steaks, fried potatoes, and salad. There was even a bottle of champagne, which produced a fountain of green foam when Sim uncorked it.

They clinked cups together with their friends, toasting the health of Ben Jinn Kenobi.

It wasn't the prolonged meal they were accustomed to having with the Sim and Mari , for Sabé was nodding off at the table even though she had a heartier appetite as he'd ever seen. Once the kitchen was cleaned up, Obi-Wan and Sim stepped outside to smoke a torve weed joint, then the Starfalls retired to the cellar, wanting to be nearby in case Sabé had any trouble during the night.

For the first time, they were alone with their son.

"Has Qui-Gon seen his namesake?" Sabé asked as the baby slept against her heart.

Obi-Wan nodded across the room to where his Master's form shimmered near the front door. "He says the honor would make him weep, if he were corporeal. Also, he'd have the leftover eopie steak."

Sabé snorted with laughter. "Did he really say that last bit?"

"Honestly, Obi-Wan," said the ghost. "Such mischief is unbecoming for a new father."  

"It's the delirium," Obi-Wan replied, yawning.

"Sleep while you can," Qui-Gon said, fading away, "for all too soon, I feel you'll wake again."

_The End_


End file.
